Meet Tuesday's winners: Here are New Jersey's newcomers to the House of Representatives

Herb Jackson, Washington Correspondent for the USA Today Network New Jersey, with 5 takeaways from the 2018 NJ midterm elections, and what's yet unresolved.
North Jersey Record

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Mikie Sherrill makes her acceptance speech, winning for the Democrats a seat held by Republicans for more than 30 years. Sherrill defeated Republican candidate, state Assemblyman Jay Webber in the 11th District.
November 6, 2018, Parsippany, NJ(Photo: Bob Karp/Staff Photographer)Buy Photo

State Sen. Jeff Van Drew, a Democrat from Cape May Court House, was a quick favorite when he jumped into the race to succeed Republican Rep. Frank LoBiondo of Ventnor, who announced in November that he would retire rather than seek a 13th term.

LoBiondo had never gotten less than 57 percent of the vote, but the district also backed Democrat Barack Obama for president twice before Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton there by 4.6 percentage points in 2016.

Van Drew, 65, won his legislative district six times for state Assembly and Senate and was one of the more conservative Democrats in Trenton. He earned a 100 percent rating from the National Rifle Association in 2017, for example.

Republicans in June nominated 69-year-old former Atlantic City councilman and attorney Seth Grossman. The National Republican Congressional Committee rescinded an endorsement and urged Grossman to drop out when bigoted writings and statements came to light. For example, a CNN investigation found that Grossman wrote, "This is where 'multi-culturalism' and 'diversity' has taken us" when he shared an article on Facebook about Muslims throwing Christians overboard from a ship carrying migrants to Italy.

Van Drew, a dentist, made a pitch to both parties, saying in a TV ad launched Oct. 10 that he treated Republicans and Democrats the same when they came to his dental office or his legislative office.

Tom Malinowski

7th District

All of Hunterdon County and parts of Essex, Morris, Somerset, Union and Warren counties

Republican Rep. Leonard Lance's campaign for a sixth term against Democrat Tom Malinowski was one of the most intense in New Jersey and nationally, with outside groups pouring in $5.7 million, much of it for TV ads trading charges and countercharges.

Malinowski, 53, is a former assistant secretary of state under Obama, and also led the group Human Rights Watch. He is divorced with one child and after receiving a degree in education from the University of California-Berkeley, he earned a master of philosophy and politics at Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. Malinowski lives in Rocky Hill.

“I came here as a legal immigrant escaping a communist country with my mother when I was 6 years old," Malinowski said during a debate in September. "And the wonderful thing I learned about America even as a small child was that I could be from somewhere else, I could have a different culture, I could have a mother who spoke with a funny accent … and yet I could be accepted very quickly as 100 percent American so long as I embraced the rules and traditions and ideals of this country. And that’s not only a good thing, it’s our greatest comparative advantage in the world.”

Mikie Sherrill

11th District

Parts of Essex, Morris, Passaic and Sussex counties

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Mikie Sherrill makes her acceptance speech, winning for the Democrats a seat held by Republicans for more than 30 years. Sherrill defeated Republican candidate, state Assemblyman Jay Webber in the 11th District.(Photo: Bob Karp/Staff Photographer)

The race to succeed Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, who announced his retirement in January, saw Democrat Mikie Sherrill, a political newcomer from Montclair, defeat six-term Assemblyman and former Republican state Chairman Jay Webber.

Sherrill, 46, has four children.

She is a former Navy helicopter pilot and federal prosecutor who was called "one of the best candidates in the country" by Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the No. 2 Democratic leader in the House. She raised more than $7 million for the race, breaking House fundraising records for a New Jersey candidate, and recently had a campaign rally headlined by former Vice President Joe Biden.

The district is 4.5 percent more Republican than the country as a whole, according to FiveThirtyEight.com and Sherrill was seen as a slight favorite in what had been a close race. A Monmouth University poll released last month had Sherrill leading among likely voters 49 percent to 44 percent, a spread that was within the survey's margin of error.

On Election Day, Sherrill bested Webber by a margin of 56 to 43, one of the largest victory margins in the state's battleground districts.

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Mikie Sherrill makes her acceptance speech, winning for the Democrats a seat held by Republicans for more than 30 years. Sherrill defeated Republican candidate, state Assemblyman Jay Webber in the 11th District.
November 6, 2018, Parsippany, NJ Bob Karp/Staff Photographer

Supporters of Mikie Sherrill explode into cheers as CNN names her the winner for the NJ 11th Congress seat at the Parsippany Sheraton. The Naval Academy graduate, Navy Pilot and former federal prosecutor was running for Rodney Frelinghuysen's seat in the NJ 11th district. November 6, 2018, Parsippany, NJ Bob Karp/Staff Photographer

Mikie Sherrill makes her acceptance speech, winning for the Democrats a seat held by Republicans for more than 30 years. Sherrill defeated Republican candidate, state Assemblyman Jay Webber in the 11th District.
November 6, 2018, Parsippany, NJ Bob Karp/Staff Photographer

Mikie Sherrill makes her acceptance speech, winning for the Democrats a seat held by Republicans for more than 30 years. Sherrill defeated Republican candidate, state Assemblyman Jay Webber in the 11th District.
November 6, 2018, Parsippany, NJ Bob Karp/Staff Photographer

Mikie Sherrill makes her acceptance speech, winning for the Democrats a seat held by Republicans for more than 30 years. Sherrill defeated Republican candidate, state Assemblyman Jay Webber in the 11th District.
November 6, 2018, Parsippany, NJ Bob Karp/Staff Photographer

Morris County Democratic Chairman Chip Robinson, l, reacts to the crowd before Mikie Sherrill made her acceptance speech, winning for the Democrats a seat held by Republicans for more than 30 years. Sherrill defeated Republican candidate, state Assemblyman Jay Webber in the 11th District.
November 6, 2018, Parsippany, NJ Bob Karp/Staff Photographer

Mikie Sherrill makes her acceptance speech, winning for the Democrats a seat held by Republicans for more than 30 years. Sherrill defeated Republican candidate, state Assemblyman Jay Webber in the 11th District.
November 6, 2018, Parsippany, NJ Bob Karp/Staff Photographer

Mikie Sherrill makes her acceptance speech, winning for the Democrats a seat held by Republicans for more than 30 years. Sherrill defeated Republican candidate, state Assemblyman Jay Webber in the 11th District.
November 6, 2018, Parsippany, NJ Bob Karp/Staff Photographer

Mikie Sherrill makes her acceptance speech, winning for the Democrats a seat held by Republicans for more than 30 years. Sherrill defeated Republican candidate, state Assemblyman Jay Webber in the 11th District.
November 6, 2018, Parsippany, NJ Bob Karp/Staff Photographer

Mikie Sherrill makes her acceptance speech, winning for the Democrats a seat held by Republicans for more than 30 years. Sherrill defeated Republican candidate, state Assemblyman Jay Webber in the 11th District.
November 6, 2018, Parsippany, NJ Bob Karp/Staff Photographer

Mikie Sherrill makes her acceptance speech, winning for the Democrats a seat held by Republicans for more than 30 years. Sherrill defeated Republican candidate, state Assemblyman Jay Webber in the 11th District.
November 6, 2018, Parsippany, NJ Bob Karp/Staff Photographer

Mikie Sherrill makes her acceptance speech, winning for the Democrats a seat held by Republicans for more than 30 years. Sherrill defeated Republican candidate, state Assemblyman Jay Webber in the 11th District.
November 6, 2018, Parsippany, NJ Bob Karp/Staff Photographer

Mikie Sherrill makes her acceptance speech, winning for the Democrats a seat held by Republicans for more than 30 years. Sherrill defeated Republican candidate, state Assemblyman Jay Webber in the 11th District.
November 6, 2018, Parsippany, NJ Bob Karp/Staff Photographer

Mikie Sherrill makes her acceptance speech, winning for the Democrats a seat held by Republicans for more than 30 years. Sherrill defeated Republican candidate, state Assemblyman Jay Webber in the 11th District.
November 6, 2018, Parsippany, NJ Bob Karp/Staff Photographer

Mikie Sherrill makes her acceptance speech, winning for the Democrats a seat held by Republicans for more than 30 years. Sherrill defeated Republican candidate, state Assemblyman Jay Webber in the 11th District.
November 6, 2018, Parsippany, NJ Bob Karp/Staff Photographer

Mikie Sherrill makes her acceptance speech, winning for the Democrats a seat held by Republicans for more than 30 years. Sherrill defeated Republican candidate, state Assemblyman Jay Webber in the 11th District.
November 6, 2018, Parsippany, NJ Bob Karp/Staff Photographer

Mikie Sherrill gives a hug to Morris County Democratic Chairman Chip Robinson before she made her acceptance speech, winning for the Democrats a seat held by Republicans for more than 30 years. Sherrill defeated Republican candidate, state Assemblyman Jay Webber in the 11th District.
November 6, 2018, Parsippany, NJ Bob Karp/Staff Photographer